


Point of Focus

by sinfuldesire_archivist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drama, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Romance, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-29
Updated: 2010-04-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:51:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8724028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinfuldesire_archivist/pseuds/sinfuldesire_archivist
Summary: Sequel to Something We Can Do.He wants Dean from the inside out. He wants him with a sweeping, tidal flow of desperation that makes his palms sweat and his gut knot up. It's agony, this need, and it threatens the very foundations of who Sam is. Well, who Sam thought he'd be. Wanted to be. Whatever. He hardly cares. His skin is half again too small to contain his itch and burn for Dean, and nothing will make this okay.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at [Sinful-Desire.org](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sinful_Desire). To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Sinful Desire collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sinfuldesire/profile).

****

Point of Focus

Consciousness gleams just below a sun-kissed surface, darting here and there, golden-scaled and reflective like the koi in those Chinese ponds – glutted to lazy inattention and happy to be warm. Sam's almost there. Nearly but not-quite awake. There is an unpleasant kind of disharmony churning in his bowels – the sour grumbling of an acidic gut – and a counterbeat playing behind his eyes. There's a greenish absence there, too. It is the feeling of coming awake after a dreamless sleep only to find the nightmare right there. Right bloody there.

 

He should have stopped. He can't remember what insidious force crept into his skin in that bar and ordered a fourth round. Fifth. Sixth. Seventh? Eighth. He's pretty sure eighth.

 

But he can remember the whir and hum of the laptop's fan as it churned to life while he drifted. He can remember the sticky sound of Dean... _oh, God, he doesn't want to think about that..._. And he can remember the way Dean pressed into him. Kissed him and soothed him and – _shit_ – the love in Dean's eyes. But love is nothing between them now. Love was the way they felt when they fucking hated each other. Love was the way Dean sewed Sam up and swallowed his darkness and bartered his own soul for his brother's. 

 

And even these were small things. Gestures. Fleeting, inconsequential moments in the face of last night.

 

None of these things hold a candle to that look he remembers in Dean's eyes – and the bile climbing up Sam's throat now, and the green black headache throbbing low, and the fear and the quiet, and sure, yeah, maybe the regret – are nothing in comparrison.

 

He's afraid to open his eyes. He can feel Dean next to him, hot and close and damp, and when he breathes deep, there it is – that fresh hair gel/stale sweat combination that he figures will always make him hard for the rest of his natural life. His body is stirring even now, responding to his brother's presence, his warmth, his organic sensuality – even in repose. And it's fucking stupid. Is what it is. _Fucking_ stupid. And hot. And holy hell, why does Dean have to shrug into his arms just so and grunt sleepily in that same sex-soaked voice and sling one thigh across his crotch in such a way that the maddening interest noted there before is definitely not going to head back to bed for another couple of winks.

 

Fucking Dean.

 

So Sam does what he can to negotiate enemy territory, here, and he hunkers down and mans up and steels himself against a bout of denial, repression, and avoidance. Up and coming. Any minute now.

 

But then Dean shifts, moves his arm against Sam's ribs, and mutters, “Sammy, you up?”

 

_What?_

 

And yeah. He's up. He's all too up and worried sick and just what in the hell is Dean playing at, and for that matter, has he been awake all this time?!

 

“Woah. Gross, dude.”

 

Apparently not.

 

Because he's peeling himself away from Sam's chest, and okay, so fine, so it's pretty sick. Sam sort of wishes he was deaf, in fact, because he really could do without the sound effects this early in the morning, and there is just nothing doing with the way Dean grimaces and gags theatrically and tears out of his arms. It's deeply unpleasant, really. It's not what he'd hoped this would be. If he'd even taken the time to hope anything at all.

 

Who would have known there was such a thing as the awkward morning after with someone you'd loved and been loved by your entire life.

 

Relationships are such a funny thing. The way they can shift in a heartbeat. The way they can fall apart.

 

Sam watches Dean's back retreat towards the shower for the second time in a dozen hours, and there's a petulant voice in the back of his mind that figures hey, maybe it's his fucking turn for first wash.

 

He wonders vaguely what would happen if he joined his brother under the soak and spray – pressed against him and pushed his fingers up under the lather into the planes of muscle across his chest, his stomach, crowded right into his soapy space and held him close against the chipped tile and pulled that needy groan from his lips. _God_ , that sound.

 

He contemplates the whole scenario briefly, rejects it, shrugs his way out of bed and sniffs at his armpits, loathing himself. He's rank, but it'll keep until Dean's through. Maybe his brother will even be willing to head down to the lobby for coffee while he spends a good hour in the bathroom rinsing away the incriminating evidence of a night all his desperate focus is struggling valiantly to forget.

 

Be easier if he didn't wish it would happen all over again. Hell, it'd be easier if he wasn't _planning_ it. Just now. And he wants to think, ' _Fucking Dean_ ', but somehow, all he can think is, ' _Fucking Sam_ '. And shit. That doesn't sit well at all.

 

_Fucking Dean_.

 

There it is.

 

The bathroom is quiet, now, the faucets off and the lights clicking out of their dull, electric roar and into a silence that jars the flow of Sam's inner monologue, and he just blinks in time with the darkness emanating from the bathroom as Dean steps out. Loose-fitting denim. Brown cotton/polyester discount fucking special. He looks like Dean. His dime-store tee comes complete with a pointless hood he'll tug over the collar of his leather, later, and somehow the clashing brown-on-brown paired with the faded-in-all-the-right-blue-collar-places Levis will make the fucker look like he did it on purpose. Like an edgy model in a filthy magazine. Like the boy next door – the one who'll fuck your daughter if you don't mind her. Like the perfect hunter. Functional. Flexible. Falsely reliable and full of deadly intent. Like the brother Sam has always, _always_ loved. And like _holy shit_. Really. _Holy shit_. Because there is nothing in this world like the way Dean wears his cheap crap. The way it drapes over his body and just seems to scrunch and settle and finally succumb, like everything else in Dean's life – like Sam himself – to that incredible allure. To that stark physical perfection. And Sam is decidedly _not_ hard right now. Not even close. Damnit.

 

Fleetingly, Sam wonders if there is any force in this world or the next that _isn't_ interested in cow-towing to his brother's every whim. In honouring him, worshipping him, genuflecting before him because that's just how goddamn perfect and right and _immense_ Dean is.

 

He's pretty sure there is nothing. And that makes him sad. And sad can't even begin to describe what that makes him feel, actually. Because the way Sam sees it is this: the lowest demons in the bowels of Hell court Dean's compliance. The antichrist trusts him – looks to him for guidance. The angels in Heaven adore him. The highest choir of the Lord attempts to seduce him with their wiles. Their will. The archangel wants to possess him body and soul and the devil himself wants to cut his throat and watch him bleed out and leave Sam with nothing – _nothing_ – left. What does God want? Sam's willing to bet it's Dean.

 

It's all about Dean, really. It always has been.

 

Maybe Dean is all that is ever going to be for Sam. Maybe this absurd romance, for whatever it's worth, is all the love the fates and God will allow the likes of Sam Winchester. And he's pretty cool with it, really.

 

The darkest and most private parts of his mind and soul wonder how a demon's spawn and a traitor and a black, black, infernal piece of shit like him could _ever_ merit the love of a pure soul like Dean's – a figher's brilliant heart and the truest empathetic nature Sam has ever seen in a person – but the other parts, the dominant parts, the parts that are still very much Sam Winchester, trust in his brother's love and take succor from the curiosity of it. Sometimes real beauty is just beauty, this portion of Sam says to himself. 

 

Unconditional love is in the nature of perfection. He reminds himself of this. This is why Dean loves him. Despite. Everything.

 

He is not ignorant as to the parallels. They scare him a bit. He wonders if it is this surreal awe of Dean, more than the unequivocally sinful (and really _very_ fucking awesome) buggery of the night before, that damns him.

 

Cause he's pretty sure God would forgive him for taking it up the ass. Even from Dean.

 

But he's not at all sure God would forgive him the way his heart speeds up a pace or ten when Dean presses his kneecaps against the mattress and scrubs Sam's hair and chuckles a bit at his general disarray. Because when Dean does that, Sam presses into his open palm like a starved kitten and inhales deeply of the coconut-soap scent there and every thought in his fucked-up mind is of Dean's swollen lips and his cock and the way he sounds when he's inside of Sam, and just seriously what in the hell.

 

He's not at all sure God would forgive him. Because he's not at all sure God is real. Not real in the way that Dean is real, anyway. Not real in the _face_ of Dean, really. And _fuck_. That thought is a little too raw. For Sam. So he tucks it away for further contemplation. Or perhaps for further self-recrimination – you know, if he dies before being absolved. Because he's pretty sure he's going to Hell for this. For all of this.

 

Then again, if that's where Dean will be...

 

And there is something so totally fucked about that that it makes Sam smile. He can feel those dimples punctuating his cheeks, and it makes him smile even more, though what he really wants is to scowl like a tough guy. Like Dean.

 

“What are you so happy about?”

 

Sam's a grateful wretch just to hear Dean's voice. Pathetic. He wants to scream and tear his hair out and kiss his brother senseless. He's a fucking perv.

 

“You. Nothing. You.”

 

Dean cocks his head a bit and his fingers fall from Sam's hair, brush against his shoulder, and then they're gone. The spirit of sensation lingers, though, haunts Sam's skin, and no homemade shell full of rock salt is going to dispell this one, so he leans back, drawing some distance between them – a measureable space, like he's cool with it, and that blows – and looks away. He's fine. He's good, and that's okay. But his fringe is in his eyes and those dimples are fucking nowhere fast and _this_ is why Dean sharks the poker tables while he lurks in the shadows like the understated hint of violence that he is.

 

Not that he's so bad at poker, come to find out. Not so bad at all. At lying. He's grown quite good at that recently. Lots of practice on Dean. The thought usually makes him cringe – should – but just now the look on Dean's face has robbed him of that comfortable old hat of shame. Because the look on Dean's face is unequivocal. It's not one Sam has ever really seen there before.

 

It's the look he gets when a prospect turns him down. Right.

 

And _what_? Dean is the one who unpeeled himself from Sam's arms this morning, and all disturbing imagery and all-too-real organic residue aside, laughed it all off and washed it away and lived to fight another day while Sam can't even abide the thought of showering, now, and losing the cold stink of his brother on him. In him. The burn of the path Dean kissed along his throat – and yeah, that one is probably a melancholic perception and nothing more, but man.

 

How is it possible that Dean reads rejection in the way Sam pulls away and squares his shoulders and scowls up at him? Dean should know him better by now. Know his artifice and his fear. How can Dean think there is anything but unmitigated want in the way he draws back – cowers, really – and makes himself as small as he can manage. And that's not much, Sam knows. He can never disappear to anyone – he is nothing short of a goliath (and he likes to remind himself what happened to Goliath), – but least of all to Dean. Dean should know him better. Should recognize all the fallibility and desperate need in Sam. Should realise Sam would never _ever_ adopt a posture of fear unless... it wasn't fear at all. But something else. Something deeply wrong.

 

And fucking Dean. He does.

 

He smiles just right, and it breaks Sam's heart. He pulls against his neck, draws him in, and there is a brief, brotherly moment there where Dean's fingers are digging into the hair at the nape of Sam's neck and Sam is just resting quietly against his brother's stomach, drawing strength from the core of Dean's will. Silence reigns and they exchange energy: Dean's knowing and deep, Sam's riotous and greedy. He could fucking kill himself for playing the baby brother in this of all moments, but sometimes you have to play the hand you're dealt, and as Sam looks up into Dean's eyes and that brotherly affection melts away into something else entirely, he wouldn't trade his for the world.

 

And that means something coming from a Winchester.

 

“Go clean up. I'll get coffee. Breakfast.” The militaristic tone of voice Dean adopts most mornings softens, as does his grip in Sam's hair, and they break away from one another, but Sam's good because he can feel that the reluctance in his brother matches his own. And that's sweet. He can wait.

 

“Sammy? I'll be here when you're done.”

 

And that. That's a promise.

 

Ugh. The dimples. The shit-eating adoration Sam always feels when Dean shines on him like he is now – all that sweet, blessed glow reflective and radiant and everything God or man could ever hope to know. Fuck, Sam's as sober as a priest, now, if not as celibate, and still his mind is wild and strange to him and pressing into a new understanding of Dean that is throwing him off kilter like fuck.

 

Do those koi ever realise they're trapped?

 

Sam thinks about all that romantic bullshit. He thinks about the poets who wrote of the darkness he knows and of the private allure of the losses he's suffered. Themes of isolation always stick with him. Poe. Service. The dread of solitude.

 

But then there's Dean. And his life as it is makes things in this moment all the better for having been tempered by despair. Because, as he stretches up and makes his way to the washroom, a quick glance back lets him know Dean can't take his eyes off of him, and he was right about this not being over between them. Maybe he's right about it never being over, now that it's begun. He can't even remember when it started. He feels like he's always wanted Dean just the way he does now. Before any of it. Before all of it. He's wanted Dean since the day he was born, maybe. Maybe. Who knows? Who cares.

 

As he cranks the faucet, he hears the door to their room click shut, and Sam knows he's alone. He's going to get that coffee he'd been hoping for. Even if it is three hours old. And he's going to get Dean, too. In all the ways he's ever dreamed of having him. And as the reality coalesces, he has to admit: there are a lot of ways. But he suspects and is thankful for the fact that there is a lot of Dean with which to work: there is a vast, exponential limitlessness to his brother, actually. An unquantifiable factor that changes the way in which he loves. Because Sam knows that, for every moment he spends needing every square inch of Dean's flesh, his mind, and soul – and there will be no shortage of those, for Sam is a greedy, needy, devouring taker of all the light and life left in Dean, and he can't and won't get enough, not ever, and there is no apology left in him now, because it's just so fucking good – Dean has a hundred, a thousand, a countless, _infinite_ quantity of moments to feed back to him.

 

There is no breadth or depth or length or height or weight or _any_ measurable unit that might be accurately applied to the myriad and hungry ways in which Sam wants Dean. And Dean is enough. For all of it.

 

Under the hot, hot spray, Sam washes away the evidence of the night before. He mourns it – actually watches as the soap and sweat swirl in the drain and disappear – and then shakes his head and shampoos and tries his level best to smarten up. 

 

He longs for Dean's return, and he's as hard as steel and wants to touch himself, but there is an unrecognisable reticence there. He has always relieved himself in the past; for a long, long time, horniness has represented nothing more than a basic physiological function. Sam would as soon take a shit as masturbate, and often with more satisfaction.

 

There has been nothing in his sphere of reference for so bloody long. Nothing of import. Nothing of sway. Nothing at all worth pissing his focus away on, like he is now: nothing worth dying for. And he just might. If he can't get his fucking brother out of his head and focus on what truly exists ahead of them. Always ahead. One step every way there.

 

And that's the kicker, really. What's the point.

 

Dean. Dean. _Dean_. Sam can't bare to think of the consequences of what he's doing: he imagines this turning out badly. With angels out there knowing how it truly is between them. With a thousand craven demons guessing at their wicked attraction. Sam doesn't even want to begin to imagine the cosmic consequences of this thing between them.

 

And as he towels dry and pulls on a loose pair of Dean's sweats (even though they're several inches short and falling apart at the seams), he couldn't care less. Fuck 'em. Angels. Demons. Lucifer. God.

 

_God_.

 

That particular thought makes Sam sick and desperate and he fucking _longs_ for Dean, and he knows he's hooped. But Christ. Where the hell _is_ God at a time like this. If he's not manifest in the way Sam feels when Dean threads himself deep in between and above everything that Sam is and comes and finally they're one the way they were always meant to be...

 

Sam just can't imagine.

 

If he was God, this is where he'd be. Between the two of them. Hot and hard and ignoring the bang and clatter around them and succumbing to the way they need each other. To the way Sam needs Dean, anyway.

 

When he pushes the bathroom door closed behind him and he's oddly grateful for the stale, aged air of the room, Sam isn't surprised to find Dean holding out a cup of coffee. Generic cup. He got it downstairs. Which means he made his way back as quickly as possible.

 

Kept his promise.

 

He _wants_ to be back.

 

“You smell good.” Dean smiles and Sam takes the cup.

 

“I smelled better before the shower,” Sam says, and he shrugs 'cause he means it. Dean's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline and he chuckles, slow and breathy, and Sam wants to crawl into his lap. But he doesn't. He really doesn't. Because that would be... just patently ridiculous.

 

“Coffee's shit,” he says, and Dean is kicking off his boots. There's a local paper in his hand, and that makes Sam glow all warm and chick-like on the inside, because if Dean is only working the local angle for possible jobs, they're going to be here for a while. Maybe a week or more. Nothing wrong with that at all. He doesn't quite want to think about what he's getting himself into. He's done too much thinking for today, he figures. He just wants whatever the hell happened between them last night. The way Dean simply _acquiesced_.

 

“And free,” Dean adds brightly.

 

_Well. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it,_ Sam thinks.

 

He drinks his coffee real slow, liking the way it cools in his palms, loving the shallow scowl on his brother's forehead, the terse set of lips that move busily, subtly as he reads. Sam could close his eyes right now and catalogue every detail about his brother in this moment. Every fucking thing. Like how Dean's wearing one white sock and one grey, and the grey one is Sam's. The toes of his left foot are tucked under the arch of his right, and there's something child-like and unassuming about that. His legs are still – that's rare and means he's working on his first cup of coffee – and his shoulders are square and strong; he's no longer favouring the left. He shakes his head imperceptibly every few minutes, but that's par for the course; Dean hates the shit he reads in the news. Hates realising that, despite what they do, despite what they've sacrificed and the hard-won scraps of peace and security the victims of their hunts manage to piece together in the half-light of their victories, people are still dying. Killing. Human suffering is insurmountable. The one true constant.

 

These dark thoughts leech into the furrow in Dean's brow, now, and the wrinkle there reminds Sam that there was a time when Dean was young and excruciatingly perfect. Sam hated him for it then as much as he loves him for it now. Somewhere along the way, all that old jealousy and hurt just melted into memory, and even though Dean seems to get more beautiful by the day – harder, sweeter, stronger, smarter – and his capacity for loving Sam is just _fucked_ in its scope and awesome in its execution, all Sam knows these days is an adoration so consuming it's almost grief. Because he doesn't just want to crawl into Dean's lap – and yeah, he wants that. 

 

He wants Dean from the inside out. He wants him with a sweeping, tidal flow of desperation that makes his palms sweat and his gut knot up. It's agony, this need, and it threatens the very foundations of who Sam is. Well, who Sam thought he'd be. Wanted to be. Whatever. He hardly cares. His skin is half again too small to contain his itch and burn for Dean, and nothing will make this okay.

 

He remembers the way he felt last night. When Dean swallowed his come and looked up from his arms with eyes like... some metaphysical conceit. Sam couldn't care less. He just _wants_. How interesting can that fucking paper be, anyway? His coffee is cold dregs in the bottom of a sodden cup, and he puts it down on the bedside table and wills his brother to want him, too. To just put that goddamn paper down and cross the three feet that separate their beds and _fuck_ him, already.

 

He can't remember when he's ever been so crass. He reminds himself of his brother in this moment, and it's a heady realisation. So much so, really, that he's actually proud of the way his erection is starting to hurt. He smiles to himself. Dimples form. He can't fucking help it – wishes he could. He's glad, for the first time in twenty minutes, that Dean is engrossed in that podunk rag and not paying him any mind and _aw, fuck_.

 

Dean chooses that moment to look over and isn't that always the way.

 

“Sammy?”

 

The concern in Dean's voice belies the incredulous look on his face. His coffee isn't empty, but it's getting there. He sets it on his bedside table. Tucks the paper in between the cup and the lamp.

 

Sam glares at it. He can see the obits glaring right back at him. _Mark Birtch. DOB November 2, 1991. Survived by twin sisters Isabel and Cheryl Birtch and a community that will never be the same without his innocent..._

 

“ _Sammy_? You're all over the place, little brother. You okay?”

 

The incredulity is gone now. They're not playing anymore. Something in the way Sam wanted Dean went haywire in the span of a heartbeat. When his gaze fell upon that paper. When it all came crashing back to him – what's really at stake, here. And now, as their eyes meet, Sam's not fucking playing. He _needs_ Dean in an altogether too powerful way, and he means to have him.

 

“I'm here. I'm fine, Dean.” Sam makes an effort to smile. It's not entirely false; the living green of Dean's eyes and that tentative quirk to his lips – so quick to smile – ease the way. But _Christ_. If Dean isn't naked but fucking quick Sam isn't sure what's going to happen.

 

“Great. 'Cause I was thinkin'.”

 

“Call the press.” His bitchiness is rote. A manifestation of design.

 

“...that you might put that mouth of yours to better use. For once.”

 

“For twice.”

 

“For thirds. For thrice?” Dean thinks about it seriously for a second, that pretty frown back and his lips so full and appealing as he licks at them in careful concentration that Sam is actually annoyed.

 

Seriously. Dean has no business being so...

 

“Dean?”

 

Sam marvels at the way his brother just loses the plot. Wherever the hell his mind wanders, it's a hop, skip, and a jump back into Sam's peripheral, because that's the nature of what they are. Sam's learning every second that he's not in this alone. Not by a long shot.

 

“Please don't be wearing clothes by the time I get over there.”

 

Sam counts to five before he slumps to his knees on the floor and begins the three-shuffle crawl to Dean's lap. It takes Dean maybe two to realise he's as serious as a heart attack before he starts peeling away various layers of made-in-China to reveal a glittering expanse of lean muscle and a flawless, honey tan that never manages to fade. Despite the fact that it always seems to be night-time and winter and raining in the life of the Winchesters.

 

His jeans are unzipped and slouched low around his hips by the time Sam kneels up to wrap long arms behind Dean's back and tug him down. When he's lying on the bed with Sam between his legs, he groans a bit, and there's no way he would have done that if he'd known the way it would make Sam's heart squirm and pound in his chest.

 

_For God's sake_ , Sam is half in love with him at this point.

 

He's greedy as hell for his brother's cock – insatiable and wanton – and there is nothing going to stop him at this point. Least of all Dean. So he gropes for his brother. Sloppy. Amateur.

 

Neither of them could care less.

 

He swallows around him, lapping at the thick veins around Dean's length, drooling and slurping because he can tell from the tense shift and shudder that Dean loves the sounds he's making and the wet slide of his mouth.

 

The booze last night might have dulled the bite and tang of his brother at the back of his throat, but as the glare of morning filters through their window and Sam has to close his eyes against its brilliance, there is nothing to mask the honesty of this moment.

 

Sober. Sound. So fucking in love he can feel his heart skipping on every second beat as he sucks and smiles and Dean's body succumbs around him, legs limp and shaking, fists square and scrunched into the bedsheets.

 

“Dean. Dean. _Dean_.” He's doing it again. He can hear himself doing it. Like a child's prayer. Like he was never able to learn praise beyond the name of the being to which he is devoted. He may be a neophyte, but he's a fucking convert. There is just nothing else. He kisses and begs; he swallows and his heart sings.

 

Dean huffs above him, shifts, and he's grasping for Sam's hands and drawing him up into a devastating kiss. Sam loves the way Dean encourages him to sprawl and give his weight over; he's never been able to do that before. He drifts languorously for a moment, at peace in Dean's arms, submissively inert and aware of his brother's lips on his throat from a far-away, deeply contented and emotional place. A place that is just his, for now, and will be. Dean would tease him anyway. If he knew. 

 

And so his body responds while his soul slips into that space that loves Dean so much he could fucking explode and take the entire world down with him, but it's not a distance between them. It's right. Dean can sense it, too: that displacement. He grins against Sam's throat and whispers, “C'mon, Sammy. We'll girl's-blouse this after the fucking.”

 

Crass. Perfect. Dean.

 

They kiss a while more, and Dean's lips linger. He could force the issue, hurry it along, but he's taking his time, and their synergy is building. His tongue is violent and searing against Sam's as he forces the union of their mouths; in this, as in many things, Sam is helpless to resist Dean's dominance and authority. Not that he wants to. Matter of fact, he can't think of anything worse than resisting this incredible harmony. They've each slipped down under the hats most comfortable to them – lost as they both are to the allegro melody of their hearts beating in tandum, racing towards one another – and Sam is deferential and seeking and in dire fucking straights, here. Dean, on the other hand, exudes a stupid calm. Sam hopes and believes it to be false. But it's there. Soft and compliant and easy. Open. Steady.

 

And Sam does not like it one bit. He knows how badly Dean wants him; he can hear it in the way he sighs, feel it in the bow of his calf, see it in Dean's calculated exhale.

 

The bottom line is Sam's going to fuck Dean. Hard. From the way his cock twitches in anticipation and his body hardens to the fight-response, he's pretty sure it's not going to be painless for either of them. A big part of him knows Dean won't care.

 

A smaller part of him doesn't care, either.

 

But he damps that down, because man, Dean's his _brother_. Dean's the love of his life. Dean is just everything. And hurting him is a huge no-go. Hurting him is diametrically contradictory to every nerve and impulse singing in him now. All he wants is to give Dean pleasure and security – to fold him in and make him come and be his brother.

 

All he wants is to shatter Dean and own him and break him down until he's a sobbing, stuttering mess and there is just nothing left of John or the hunt or the slaughter that lines their wake. 

 

He is a complicated man, Sam Winchester. He is a perfect fuck-up.

 

Luckily there's Dean.

 

Sam just can't get enough, and the momentum builds. He is grinding against Dean's cock, now, like a teenager, and the rough denim is burning through him, the button of his fly cutting. Dean's hands are fumbling between them, but he's making little headway as Sam presses them even closer together, not wanting to exist outside of Dean for another second longer than he has to, but also dreadfully afraid of pulling away long enough to undress – of any break in this serendipitous sequence of events that might give Dean pause, allow him to draw back and breathe deep and assess this thing in the sober light of day and maybe reconsider the wisdom of what they are becoming.

 

It is a black and baldly inappropriate metamorphosis. There is a sentient, sagacious cunning to this entire turn of events. Sam wants Dean, with every moment that he has him, more truly and completely than he ever has before. It can't be right. He's flustered and fucked. His brain is haywire and his body is thrumming and firing on all cylinders. Finally his cock makes the decision his brain can't, and he draws up and away from Dean to strip with an urgent efficiency that might have been embarassing. Should have been.

 

When he's through, he looks to Dean, and he's also stripped away whatever remained of the clothes he wore so well. They're both nude and sweating and staring at one another, and Sam can see his own need reflecting in Dean's eyes. They're glowing charcoal dark and green like spring run-off and they're dewy with repressed desire – and fuck, it's beautiful how he's been holding back. Typical. Maddening. Flawless.

 

“Dean. Please...”

 

Dean shakes his head. He can't hear what Sam has to say – won't. That's fine. Sam can barely wrap his own mind around the enormity of it.

 

Sam tries not to emote as his gaze becomes caught up and lost in Dean's. He knows that dipshit fucking face of his is probably saying it all. Dean's going to take one long look at him and realise this isn't about blowing off steam or coming down from a rough fight or tending to a hard-on. Dean's going to see that somehow, in the course of an evening, Sam's world has narrowed and refined itself to a single point of focus; he's going to see how complex Sam's love for him is – how inexhaustible.

 

Sam can't do a damn thing to protect himself. He wants to shut his eyes, but he can't. Because that would mean losing a second or more of the way Dean's shoulder bunches up towards him – too big – as he props himself up on one elbow; the way his thigh shakes as he bobs one knee up and down, nervously, with the ball of his foot on the floor; the way he licks his lips too often, blinks slowly, stretches his fingers out at his sides so the palms of each hand are visible. Inviting. And Sam can't afford to lose any of that. Not now.

 

Dean is a little afraid of this thing that is quickening in the empty space between them. Sam knows everything about the way Dean wears fear – the way it smells on him, lingers in his hair. The way it sharpens the shine in his eyes, the glow Sam so adores. The way it hardens him and makes his muscles sing. Sam has seen Dean afraid seven ways from Sunday. All his life, Sam has known Dean's fear. Shared in it. 

 

This is the same. Only this time, the thing Dean fears is himself. And the way he wants Sam so unreservedly. It's all there in his face as he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, chews on it thoughtfully, cocks his head, pulls all the way up into a sitting position – and his leg has stopped its tireless movements now; he's perfectly still. There is a desperation in his eyes that fucks Sam's mind right up – in fact he can't be sure if it's real or just a reflection of his own need. But no. No. It's there. Right in the metal and glow of Dean's mind's eye – like gold to aery thinness beat – and damned if Sam isn't the foot that leans. Still. That's not so bad; it makes Dean's circle just. _Christ_. How is it Sam's mind manages to filthy-up a classic in a moment like this? It speaks volumes to his character that he's able to summon the memory of poems he's learned at all; it speaks volumes to his character that he gives a shit. Sam could be fucking Dean right now.

 

The slant of his brother's thighs and the dirty shift of his eyes say as much. 

 

He can't quite wrap his brain around why he's just looking at the shaded place under the apex of Dean's thighs when he could be tasting it.

 

It is nothing like Sam – this voracious lover inside of him – nothing like the calculating academic he has worn these many years since Stanford. Sam is a man who puts study ahead of subtlety, sentimentality above sensuality; Sam is a man who divorces sex from romance – and knows neither.

 

And yet here he is salivating and _hungry_ for his brother in the brash light of day. His rapacious appetite for Dean's... well, everything... has him half wanting to run, afraid, and half wanting to just _fuck_ , already, and if he knows his brother – and he does – that's what Dean wants, too.

 

And yet he can't.

 

Because there's an unquantifiable depth to his brother's gaze, now, and he can't look away. Can't break eye contact. Can't even fucking move. He just stands there at the foot of the bed and stares down; Dean stares up. They're communicating a million miles a minute and not at all. There is blood between them, sure, yeah, and understanding, but it comes from no place solid. There are no words to describe what they're about to do. There is no fundamental, brotherly acknowledgement. The only recognizeable emotion Sam reads in the dewy, twilight fields of Dean's eyes is love. It's astonishing, truly. He has read love there before – in fact, he's never _not_ read love there before. It's an old look on Dean: a true look. But something has changed ever so slightly. This time, his toes can't quite reach the bottom, and the water is icy and foreign. Dean has become anomalous. Changed. Strange.

 

It hurts and thrills Sam to his very core.

 

He has never wanted anything more than to push and push this new discovery to its breaking point and see what lies beyond that. It's all he's ever done with Dean, really: push. Minutes have passed. Eight, maybe. Their eyes are locked and Sam knows that Dean knows everything he's seen and come to understand. Sam knows that Dean knows what Sam is all about – what he's become in the past day and a half. What he's not proud of and what he won't even begin to deny. Sam also knows that there is a burgeoning quiet in his brother – a sort of contentment that wasn't there before. The way he twists his jaw and cracks his neck is different than it was; the way he yawns and lets his eyes linger closed, brand new – perhaps it's nothing. Maybe it's nothing. It could be nothing – but something tells Sam it isn't. That same pleading something that he reads in Dean's eyes. The one that makes him push up against the mattress and press one knee onto the bed, shoving Dean's left leg aside.

 

“Tell me to walk away.”

 

He's not asking. He's not commanding or pleading or anything else. His voice is carefully neutral and contrived. He doesn't want Dean to send him away. He doesn't want Dean not to. He _Just. Wants. Dean._

 

“Fuck your games, Sammy.”

 

Ah, so that's how it's going to be. War. Sam might have wanted romance. He had felt it welling up inside of him – the tenderness and ache only Dean represents – maybe he still can. Fucking Dean.

 

“Dean, _Dean_.” Sam isn't sure he wants this to sound so very close to begging, but he can't shut his fucking mouth with Dean spread open before him. He wants to kneel, now, and close the distance between his traitorous lips and Dean's cock, but they've been there before, and they just wound up back here. Something is missing. Some crucial piece to this puzzle.

 

“Don't say my name like that, Sam. Don't say it unless...”

 

_Oh God_. There's a cryptic hitch in Dean's voice. An atonal note, there, that means... what... means... that he's on the verge of tears. That he could fucking cry. That he could clutch Sam to his chest and beg him and sob, again, like he hasn't done since he uncovered the cosmic consequences of his small existence. Like he never did for John Winchester. Or for Mary. Or for any of the faceless victims of Heaven and Hell they've protected or dispatched since coming together again that night back at the university.

 

“ _Dean_.” There is a deliberate intonation to Sam's response, now. His inflection is careful. His breathing is measured. The pressure of his weight against his brother's as he collapses into the hot strength of him is just fucking perfect. Sam says his name like _that_ again. Says it because he means it. He's not sure what he means by 'meaning' it, but he does.

 

A single tear pulls at the corner of Dean's eye, and Sam brushes a thumb along it, whisks it away, sucks it into his mouth and groans. His brother shakes his head with lips parted in solemn awe, and Sam can't wait anymore. He leans in and presses their lips together, and he can feel his heart shattering in his ribcage. It's agony, the tenderness of this exchange, and Sam doesn't really understand what's changed since this morning. How everything has become so _meaningful_.

 

Their tongues fall together and Dean's lips move softly against Sam's. Sam can't help but pull Dean's legs around him, squirm and tense until his brother's hands are on him, kneading into his back, drawing him too close. He is wide-eyed and panting as their hips come together with the press of their bodies, and the hard slide of Dean's cock against his makes him gasp.

 

He knows he should close his eyes. Tells himself to. But Dean is watching him back – every time he draws away and looks, their eyes meet – and it's okay. It's not awkward. It's an unfathomable new depth of honesty between them, sure. But it doesn't totally blow the way Sam pictured it might. When he pictured it. And he's not sure he ever really did. And fuck, _yeah_ , he did. 

 

Pictured this moment right here. The heat and friction, the sweat, the clean-soap sweetness and stale motel stench. He pictured the lies they'd tell one another to get where they are. The rasp and tickle of the hair on Dean's thighs as it slides up along his hipbones. Maybe he even pictured the soft prayer he'd whisper in his brother's ear and the way Dean's lips would turn inward, seek his, and draw him right down into the thick of this thing.

 

But it would be going too far to say he'd pictured the rending, soaring joy he's feeling, just now, or the way the fear and blinding anger he's been carrying for so long would just melt away into the liquid promise in Dean's eyes – just bleed out and fade off into that perpetual landscape of green and glow and the shimmer of unshed tears. It would be going too far to say that he'd known, in his riotous vision, how he could love Dean so obliquely – and need, with all his desperate might, to destroy him with that imperfect love. It's not right, the way he needs his _brother_ as the head of his cock catches on the dry flesh of Dean's sac – it's not right, but it's perfect.

 

Sam's mind is just fucking blown, and his body is all over the place. His hands are in Dean's hair, squeezing up against his throat, thumbs pressing roughly into the tender flesh there, and he's pressing up into his brother like a man possessed. All two hundred and twenty pounds of him. And if his bulk or rage mean a thing to Dean, he doesn't show it. There's not a hint of fear in his eyes. No note of tension threading its way through his musculature as he bears the brunt of Sam's insatiability. They're in this together, and Dean will carry Sam no matter what he might lose in the process. It's how they do.

 

Dean is even grateful for it. Desperate for it. Dean is open to Sam, now, in a way neither of them ever imagined could be possible, and Sam never figured his brother might plead... not ever. Sam has seen his brother face down death with a cavalier nonchalance that chilled him to the bone. Sam has seen his brother meet the certainty of eternal damnation with a careless shrug and an off-key rendition of an old Bon Jovi tune Sam hadn't heard in months. But, sure enough, here it is. Dean's quiet voice, deep and scratched-up and hoarse and too reminiscent of bad times, but _fuck_ – and he's begging. He is. He's saying things like, 'Now, Sammy', and 'Please', and, cryptically, in a way Sam doesn't want to think about very much, 'You're mine, little brother; this is _mine_ '.

 

When Sam presses into Dean, it is nothing short of a challenge answered. Call and response. Dean needs to be taken, and Sam will take him. There is nothing really romantic about it, save for the whole world-ending adoration and mutual worship bit. There is nothing tender. Sam doesn't really want to give Dean time to adjust to this new intrusion – but he tries. Dean doesn't really want to wait another second – and he can't be bothered. He pushes up against Sam even as Sam pulls away, and like with any command issued, Sam is powerless to resist. He is balls-deep and hard up inside of Dean before he can even clear his vision and register the fleeting agony in his brother's eyes. But it's gone before it's begun, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway; there is nothing else between them now.

 

“Dean,” Sam moans, and he wishes to Christ he could cut the shit, wishes that something in the hard rhythm of his bones could mitigate this pansy-ass plea he can't stop from spilling out onto Dean's lips, across his earlobe. It is too much. It is leagues beyond what brothers should share. Fucking aside.

 

“Love you too, Sammy,” Dean groans, and that's it. He should have pushed Sam away. Should have censored him or teased him like he's always done. At the very least, Dean should have ignored this infernal worship that's been clawing up inside of Sam's chest for months and is, at long last, just _finally_ bubbling up and brimming over and busting Sam wide open in his brother's arms. But when the moment came he found he couldn't, and Sam is so utterly in love with him for that – for all of it – that he can hardly breathe.

 

And as Sam thrusts as deep as he can, so that it's nearly painful even to him, and Dean gasps and clutches at his shoulder blades – looking to Sam, even now, even in this, for backup – he realises that Dean isn't the one being broken down and pulled apart by this. Even as it's Dean who groans and winces and yeah, bleeds a little – and Sam isn't one for that, and by god, he wishes he hadn't been the cause, but on no account does he wish he could take it back, the devil take him – even as it's Dean who bites his bottom lip and squeezes Sam into himself, against his heart, needing his brother to comfort him, now, in this devastating moment, more than ever before, Sam knows; he is the one who will never be the same.

 

Dean is and always has been an insurmountable, reckless, tidal force of a being. Dependable. Destructive. Renewable. He meets his enemies head-on, often destroying himself in the process of their defeat, but his will to go on and to fight and to conquer is indomitable; he rebuilds himself, body and mind and soul, from the ground up. Whatever it takes. As often as need be.

 

And Sam. He is Dean's careful and confused counterpart. He plods and plans and every moment of every job aches in him and eats him up. In every way, he is as capable as Dean. Smarter, sometimes. Faster. More physically able and quicker to heal.

 

But in Sam there is no elemental urgency to what they are. The Winchesters. The genes are crosswired, somehow. The drive was omitted. Sam isn't a hunter. Not in the true sense of the word. Sam is merely John's student. Dean's guardian. It isn't the other way around no matter how hard he wishes it was. No matter how fully Dean believes it. No matter what John thought or wanted in his sad and solitary lifetime.

 

Sam is Dean's brother, and Dean is Sam's. That's the baseline to all of this. And even that is not enough. Maybe Sam didn't need the feel of his brother's body clenching and thrusting up against his to know this. Maybe he didn't need the soft and pitiful moans coming from way down deep in Dean's diaphram. Maybe he didn't need the murmured ' _I love you_ 's and, more telling still, the ' _I need you, Sammy_ 's.

 

But they don't hurt.

 

Sam is flushed and wanting, now, and far past caring about his own comfort or even Dean's. He pumps his hips in earnest, his bangs feathering against Dean's lashes in jarring counterpoint to the vicious pounding of Sam's thrusts below. Dean groans on every inward push, or shouts, or whispers something filthy. That sinful mouth of his is never quiet; he is ever inventive, ever disgusting: he is a litany of love confessed and the promise of unimaginably inappropriate experiences to come.

 

Sam can hardly abide the vile adoration to which his brother admits as he presses his wrists into the bed and marvels at the bruises forming there, bites at nipples already raw and red, and pounds into Dean's core every moment of fear and anxiety he's ever known – every dystopic fantasy that has ever plagued him. When he comes he pours the lion's share of everything about himself that he loathes and shies away from into Dean, and fuck, his brother takes it all, and with a joyful shout and several sharp breaths in quick succession, converts the whole sordid mess into that gorgeous, ridiculous fucking glow of his. And is it possible? Sam can't believe his eyes or the soaring roar in his heart as he glances along Dean's body, muscles shaking and hard, his own eyes clouded with the muted, woolen black-out sensation that follows an earth-shattering orgasm.

 

But it's possible. It's real. Dean is, even as Sam pulls out and his come leaks across his brother's inner thighs, scalding him in places too sensitive, just now, – the blood intermingling there a testament to this truth – grinning in the stupidest way. His eyes are closed, and thank God, because Sam doesn't think he could stand the shine he knows he'd see in them right now. But his lips are wide open and his teeth are sharp and shimmering in the morning glow of their room. His joints pop and crack as he stretches, and the tiniest frown mars his perfect brow when he tenses and realises he's going to be sore this afternoon.

 

He is exquisite.

 

His freckles in the latent sunshine and the crows' feet that crinkle at the corners of his eyes. His shuddering breath and the scent of hard work – a sense-memory that exists so deep in Sam's brain he figures it's older than he is. His calloused palm on Sam's elbow. His erection pressing into the sharp groove on Sam's belly where abs meet pelvis. And _yeah_. He's harder than he was when all of this began. He's as good as gold, Dean Winchester. Better. Nothing Sam could ever do could destroy him or taint Dean's perfection in his eyes. In the scope of the universe. His beauty is sacrosanct. Sam knows that now. It is a terrible blessing – for both of them.

 

It's what's kept him going. All these years. Kept him sane. Sam is thankful for Dean's Midas touch – for the way the entire universe seems to form itself around his pure-gold center. But he's a jealous deviant at heart – it's why he needs Dean so badly. And he's not above fighting to keep him.

 

He's not above dropping down between his brother's legs like he's wanted to all this time and lapping up his own come there. The salty burn of his seed against Dean's thigh, slicking his hole and stinging. Sam isn't afraid of any of it – not even the blood, and _oh, God_ , the blood and how he's missed it. 

 

Sam considers himself an expert, and one thing's for sure: whatever dark gift surged through his veins and thrilled him and demanded and damned every good thing there was left in Sam Winchester when he cut Ruby open and drank, there is a pure and perfect counterpoint stirring in him now – exponentially more compelling and utterly unmatched. If Ruby's blood was the font of Lucifer's dominion over Sam, then Dean's must be... well. Whatever the opposite to the devil's wicked power is. And Sam doesn't want to think about that very much. But he figures _salvation_ might fit as far as words go.

 

So he does what he can and he pulls away, wiping up the rest of the mess between Dean's thighs with the cheap sheet beneath them. It feels like hours have passed during which he's contemplated the full-stop fucking consequences of this, but he can count the seconds in Dean's eyes, and he can see, too, that if he drew himself up and walked away and pretended like none of this had ever happened, Dean would fall into line. For once in his bull-headed goddamn life. He'd heed rank in this. If in nothing else. Sam can read it all there. Despite what they've done – or maybe because of it – they can go back to being brothers. They can forget this blissful carnage and regain what really matters between them: the partnership, the truth, the singlemindedness that has always been their mutual champion.

 

But Sam'll be goddamned if that's what he wants. He'd rather the Big Yes than forget the past forty-eight hours. The clanging, raucous build-up. The drunkeness and the fiery buzz. The uncertainty. His own brash, uncharacteristic hedonism. Dean's shattering delicacy. The whole song and dance. The entire graceless union. And now this. The moment where Sam, satiate and complete, fully whole and reborn and steady-as-she-goes, gets to delve right back into the thick of this thing. Deliberately. Decidedly. This is the moment in which he gets to prove to Dean that it is all about him. Always has been.

 

So when Sam draws Dean's cock into his mouth and truly savours that sweat and saline want, feels the throb of his brother's pulse against the back of his tongue, hums along the shaft and groans around the blood quickening there, it's serendipity.

 

And there couldn't be anything more perfectly rendered than Dean's quaking gasp and the hollow focus of his pupils as Sam pulls on his length, trying not to smile and failing, but it's alright; it's good. Dean is lost to the intensity of Sam's commitment and doesn't even notice the blush that curls up along his brother's cheeks when he thinks overlong on the way his lips and tongue were fucking made for this.

 

Sam doesn't think there will ever be enough of this. Of him and Dean. There has been nothing else, really, for so long. Dean is the constant by which Sam redefines himself. It's a process. He has been a lot of things in his finite experience – every one of them a direct corollary of where Dean's at. Because Sam knows Dean's burden; that's a fact. Knows its terrible weight and the awful, inevitable conclusion of Heaven's stupid fucking game. He knows all too well the hand he's had in bringing Dean to his knees beneath the entirety of human history and all that is right and congruent and sublime in the world of men. In the known universe. All that is terribly amiss, too.

 

_Fuck._ He tries not to think about all that bullshit for a second and just fucking swallow. It's the most incredibly perfect reprieve he's ever know. It's everything. The thrill of what he's doing to his brother, now, and how big it is.

 

Dean is coming apart beneath him. He wants to crawl inside his brother, press long fingers up into him, past the blood he's spilled – _he_ , Sammy, has spilled – push his tongue into Dean's mouth and steal the breath from his lungs. He wants every single thing about Dean in every single way, and it's fucking maddening. He settles for pressing his right hand hard against the beat of Dean's heart, feeling every mechanistic nuance as it thrums, in perfect synchronicity, to the pulse in the meat of his own palm, and wrapping his left around the base of Dean's cock, pulling in punishing strokes as his lips suck and swallow and his teeth graze along each vein, tugging at the foreskin, bridging the gap between bliss and discomfort.

 

He can feel this odd sort of vibratory shudder making its way from Dean's heart and out through his bloodstream, seizing every muscle along the way and forcing a gutteral exhalation from his throat, and so he knows, well before Dean whispers, “I'm coming, Sammy,” that he's broken his brother down into this perfect, shattered prism of cascading light and quiet colour, and when Dean's come hits the back of his throat and he grasps Sam's head and holds him there and thrusts hard and fast as far as Sam can take him – further, still – not caring how he uses him... no, that's not it – caring, yes, but knowing, still, that he can never truly use Sam; knowing that Sam will take it all – all of it and more – well, that's just fucking it. The taste of Dean is overwhelming to Sam but nothing compared to the way he's feeling as he draws back, smirks at the wet slap of Dean's spent cock against his stomach, and looks up to meet his brother's eyes.

 

Dean's eyes are swimming, green and really, truly alive, in the aftermath of what Sam has done to him. And it's good. Sam so rarely gets to see that special shade and the sweet, secret glint in Dean's eyes when he's at peace. But now. Now he looks like a man possessed by the jewel-bright glow of contentedness. _Now_ he looks like the boy Sam hasn't seen in twenty years.

 

Talk about waxing melancholic.

 

“Sammy,” Dean groans, and he's gathering his little brother up into his arms, now, like the small child he once was, with no apparent regard for the absurdity of his endeavor. Sam will never fit into Dean the way he once did. Never. Except for how he does, just so. 

 

They're tacky and sweating, dripping with salt, saliva, blood, come – you name it. But they're drawn up into each other and Sam is lost, as always, in Dean's orbit, petting his hair reflexively, trying without success to damp down that niggling need – the one that is becoming so shockingly commonplace – to have him in every possible and impossible way. He's always several steps ahead, see: eight, he figures. Never gets him anywhere good. So he pulls Dean closer still and laps at the base of his throat, hooking one leg over Dean's thigh and fitting his chest along his brother's. They are locked tight at every juncture, sharing a united physiological experience, and it is not enough for Sam. He wishes he could hold Dean more tightly to his chest, but he knows he risks hurting him, and that's something he could never do. Not again, anyway. That feeling of needing him from the inside out isn't diminishing, either, but growing ever stronger, and it's pushing against Sam's heart and it _fucking hurts_.

 

“Sammy.” Dean is collecting Sam's long fingers into his fist, now, and twisting up to look him in the eye. “You're thinking too loud again.”

 

“Dean, I just...”

 

“I know, little brother.” Dean pats his arm companionably, and in that instant, Sam knows that Dean doesn't know at all.

 

“No. _No_.” He pushes up from the bed but not away. Never away. Dean has a firm grasp on his forearm and their bodies are still flush and building (impossibly), toward something. “It's not. This. It isn't...”

 

Dean twists in his arms and looms up over him, pushing him down into the mattress, eyes like lightning and hair a shock of golden fire under daylight's brush.

 

“I know what this is, Sammy. You and I. You know.”

 

_Christ_. What a lame finish to an awkward start. Sam is dissatisfied and used up and sore, and yet his legs are bound up in Dean's and their chests are close and heavy and the air between them is sweeter, somehow, and breathing has become a subtle delicacy.

 

“Just don't.” He wishes he could wipe that petulant fucking tone from his repetoire, but years of playing baby brother have made of him a master, and Dean weakens his will in so very many ways.

 

“Sammy.”

 

Fuck, his brother is impossibly beautiful. He'll never get enough of looking at him in this white late-morning light.

 

“Sammy.”

 

He is reminded of Atlas. Something about the weight and the burden of the world and – oh yeah. It can't be easy, being Sam's big brother. But Dean is doing it perfectly. He's fucking flawless. And those stupid lips. The way he tumbled into oblivion while Sam fucked him. Like he was made for it. Like they both were.

 

“ _Sam_!”

 

“Mmm.” Sam can't quite abide the dismissal he knows is coming, now. But he is a product of Dean's creation, after all, so he meets his brother's eye and his gaze softens, opens itself to the gentle let-down. Sam is determined to be everything Dean needs him to be.

 

“This _is_ happening,” Dean whispers quietly, and the effect is chilling, like ice down Sam's spine, and then a soaring, flaming bright bird of joy taking flight inside his chest. He can't even fucking piece together what Dean is talking about, but the static huff of his breath and the white light behind his eyes and the determined set to his jaw speak volumes; Dean is. He's here. And he _gets_ it. After all.

 

Sam's bright eyes come alive and his grin splits his face and he knows those _fucking_ dimples are front and center, and that irks him fierce, but nothing in Heaven or Hell can compare to the greedy want and the spell-binding enormity of what Dean says next:

 

“We're doing this, Sammy. This is something we can do.”

 

_Fuck,_ Sam thinks. _Dean_. He means it, too.


End file.
